Genomic and Biomedical Advances - SAGRudd paper.li

ARC College Hour: Project Kaisei and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

On November 13 Margy Gassel from Project Kaisei was the guest speaker for ARC College Hour. She described her voyage to the Pacific gyre swirling with plastic debris and the dangers this poses for the ecosystem. Project Kaisei aims to develop ways to solve this tragic pollution problem in the Pacific Ocean.  Below is a summary of her talk.

Mole kitchen lab - that's mole, as in chiles and chocolate, not the Avogadro's stuff

This past three-day weekend I was in the mood for mole, with its chile spiciness calmed by sweetness. This recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman's Turkey in Almond Mole recipe with chocolate and some extra spices added.

Recipe procedure:

Remove stem and seeds from 5 mild dried chiles (I used Guajillo chiles). Soak chiles in hot water until softened . Remove chiles after soaking and save soaking water for use later in Mole sauce. Coarsely chop soaked chiles.

Pan fry in unoiled pan to toast:

0.5 tsp whole coriander seeds

0.5 tsp whole cumin seeds

0.5 tsp whole anise seeds

0.5 tsp whole peppercorns

Remove toasted spices from pan and allow to cool. Then grind spices.

Pan fry in unoiled pan to toast:

2/3 cup almonds

Remove almonds and allow to cool. Then chop almonds and set aside.

Chop coarsely 3 to 4 wedges of Ibarra Mexican chocolate (roughly 35-45 grams) 

Chop 1 yellow onion and 1 fresh jalapeno pepper and saute.  When onions are browned add 4 coarsely chopped Roma tomatoes and simmer until tomatoes are soft. Add chile soaking water as needed. 

Add chopped soaked chile peppers, chopped almonds, and chopped Mexican chocolate. Add chicken broth and/or chile soaking water to desired consistency. Allow to simmer until chocolate is melted. Add raisins and allow to simmer until raisins are softened.  Allow sauce to cool and blend until smooth consistency is reached. Add chile soaking water to adjust consistency if needed. (I use an immersion blender directly in the cooking pan with sauce). Adjust taste with honey and lime juice. We avoid salt in this recipe, but you can add salt as needed.

Then I follow Mark Bittman's recipe to cook the turkey thighs and simmer with the mole sauce.

Calling on Twitter for help with lecture prep

Prof. Jonathan Eisen @phylgenomics calls upon Twitter for help preparing a series of fungus lectures for a UC Davis Intro Biology (BIS002C) class. Prof. Eisen blog post Thank you interwebs: help proving fungi are cool

Science Writers 2012 - eBook - caught on Storify

The National Association of Science Writers (NASW) held their 2012 Science Writers Meeting in the Research Triangle, North Carolina. One of the participants, Keith Eric Grant, compiled the tweets from the e-book session into a Storify, shown below. 

My tweet to Rick Topinka got caught in the story line:

The full Storify:

Our comrade at UC Davis, Denneal Jamison-McClung, co-stars in GMO explainer video!

Denneal Jamison-McClung, the Associate Director of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program, and I have worked for more than ten years together in various biotechnology education projects for high schools and community colleges. So I was thrilled to see her in this new video about GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) from The Center For Food Integrity. Here's the GMO 101 video:



For more information about the video, Colleen Cecil provides a behind-the-scenes story in her blog Growin a Home.

Managing the social media deluge - storify

Managing the social media deluge - a storify from science writer Emily Willingham. She compiled the tweets from the NASW #sciwri12. 

For more information:

Science Communication and Social Media wiki

The official hashtag for the National Association of Science Writers session that inspired this wiki is #sciwri12deluge.

Emily Willingham's blog Words, words, words